Three Philadelphia men are accused of selling stolen U.S. Treasury checks worth a combined $68 million, then mailing the money to buyers at steep discounts, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Nyeem Anderson, Zaahir McGough and Qadir Pettus face charges of conspiracy to steal government funds and possession of stolen mail, records said.<\/p>\n
The government-issued checks included payments from federal agencies, including tax refunds, Social Security benefits and payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs, documents said.<\/p>\n
Beginning in late 2024 through this past May, Anderson advertised the checks for resale on social media and platforms such as Telegram, prosecutors said. Anderson allegedly “negotiated with buyers” and sold the checks at steep discounts.<\/p>\n
After selling the checks, Anderson allegedly worked with McGough and Pettus to mail the stolen checks to buyers, prosecutors said. McGough and Pettus’ names appeared on shipping labels tied to the mailing of the checks.<\/p>\n
The government describes the checks as “stolen, taken, embezzled and abstracted” from the mail, though court documents do not describe how Anderson allegedly obtained them. Prosecutors said the government operated a facility in Philadelphia that prints and mails the checks.<\/p>\n
Federal agents arrested Anderson on Aug. 8, 2026, documents said. During the arrest, Anderson had more than $16,000 worth of U.S. Treasury checks in his pocket, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
During his arrest, Anderson reportedly said, “They finally got me. Tell everyone I am going away for a long time,” according to court documents.<\/p>\n
Anderson is tied to five addresses in Philadelphia, including two luxury apartment complexes, as well as an additional address in King of Prussia, documents said.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 11, Anderson pleaded not guilty. He remained in custody ahead of a detention hearing on Aug. 17. An attorney listed for him declined to comment Friday.<\/p>\n
McGough pleaded not guilty in July. A judge ordered him to post a $50,000 bond and surrender his passport pending trial. An attorney for McGough did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
It was unclear Friday whether Pettus was in custody. A warrant was issued for his arrest on July 22. No attorney was listed on his court docket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Philadelphia men are accused of selling stolen U.S. Treasury checks worth a combined $68 million, then mailing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-265575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}